Part I - 5 Signs That Your Country Is Being Taken Over By A Tyrant

Soft Tyranny

Part I – The 5 Signs of a Soft Tyrant Taking Over Your Country

The two major types of dictatorships in the world are “soft” and “hard”, and for this piece I will be using the word “tyrant” as the descriptor for both dictators and tyrants. Hard tyrants are relatively easy to spot and they are usually led by leaders who believe without a doubt in communism. Many of these tyrants come into power by using various “strongman tactics” such as political tactics (stacking the political deck in their favor), personal attacks (removing everyone that disagrees with them), influential tactics (controlling what the press says about them and discrediting, jailing, or killing the ones who don’t), and total military control (including martial law) via a “coup d'é·tat”. However, no matter how they do it the end game is always the same; to rule by force and make the country either an authoritarian or totalitarian regime. Many of these “strongman dictators” are not the actual leaders of a country but simply military figures or political leaders that exercise more influence over the country than the actual elected leader. When this happens they begin to force everyone who is not behind them out of the way either by expulsion from the country, prison, or death. Some examples of “hard” tyrants in history include such leaders as Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Khrushchev, Mao Zadong, Castro, and Ho Chi Minh and some of the more prominent “strongman tyrants” in modern times are Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines), Xi Jinping (China), Manuel Noriega (Panama), Kim Jung Un (North Korea), Abde-Fattah el-Sissi (Egypt), Erdogan (Turkey), Assad (Syria), and of course Vladimir Putin of Russia. We must understand that not all tyrants come into power by force because many of them are elected and then over time begin to use various strongman tactics to take over their various countries. However, others come into power by force via a “Coup D'é·tat” as mentioned above and they maintain their power by murder, extortion, bribery, and other means so that they can control the people who live in their country. It is much harder to spot “soft” tyrants that come into power by elections because they always claim to be for the people, but before people realize what is going on its too late and the person that they elected has already has taken control of their country (without firing a shot) and this was their true intent from the beginning. Whether a tyrant is hard or soft does not matter because all tyrants are evil and no true leader of any democracy or republic would ever side with these types of leaders for any reason. However, would we know what a soft dictatorship looks like if we saw one forming? The answer for most of us is no; unless of course we have taken the time to study what a soft dictatorship is. There are so many examples of this type of takeover throughout history and we have plenty of warning signs if we are willing to be honest with ourselves about what we are seeing and that question in the end is the $1 million question…

Can we be honest and put our personal bias aside?

“Imagine a hypothetical country where small groups of unelected individuals can make law by simply sitting around a conference table deciding they want a new law, even if that law violates the constitution.  Those unelected representatives could only be dismissed by the executive power and could essentially do whatever they wanted. Furthermore, imagine if the citizens of that country were not allowed to contest these decisions in court because they didn't have "standing" to do so. 

Furthermore, imagine at least one of these agencies would be empowered to go seize the property and businesses of the citizenry without any possibility of outside judicial review.  In our hypothetical country, it wouldn't matter if there were an elected body, because the agencies and executives could do pretty much anything they wanted while letting the people have the illusion of electoral control.

The country I am speaking of country isn't Cuba, Russia, or China.  Startlingly, the country I am speaking of is the United States of America, bit by bit, and the resulting soft dictatorship is getting worse.  The founders of the USA knew that government would always be the enemy of freedom.  They knew that if it became easy to pass laws then the freedoms of the Constitution would be completely undermined by an avalanche of restrictive laws.  To avoid this fate, they installed checks and balances in the Constitution to make it difficult to pass law as those laws.  They would be truly dismayed by the situation we have now some 250 years later”. (American Thinker – July 15, 2011 - Link at the End of This Posting)

This article was of course referencing Barrack Obama and all of the many EO’s (executive orders) that he was passing while he was in office, but we must understand that tyrants can belong to any political party, religious group, or race.

So what are the 5 major signs of a soft tyrant taking over your country?

Sign #1 – Discrediting, Attacking, or Attempting to Silence the Free Press

Soft and hard tyrants have one thing in common, they do NOT like a free press and many tyrants in history have gone as far as to actually kill members of the press to silence them (Stalin – Hitler – Hussein – Un – Putin). However, most people do not realize just how important a free press really is… Do you? It is important to understand that is it does not matter if you are a republican, a democrat or an independent because a free press is by far the most important tool that citizens of any country have to stop evil leaders from gaining too much power and carrying out their hidden agendas. The reason tyrants hate a free press is because a free press will always hold them accountable for what they do and they will not stop until they get to the truth. If you really want to know why a free press is so vital to a country then you need to study “Watergate” and what the Washington Post did to expose the criminal named Richard Nixon.

Our 1^st Amendment tells us that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”. Isn’t it interesting that most people only point to “freedom of religion” or the “freedom of speech” in the 1^st Amendment, but they gloss over or completely ignore the “freedom of the press” and the right to hold “peaceful assemblies” which means peaceful protests. This is very important because tyrants will always try and stop negative statements from being printed about them by calling them lies and the people who print them liars. Today instead of calling the free press that they do not like liars; they now group them all under the term of what is known as “fake news”. They do this so that their supporters will not believe anything that the free press says about that leader which means that these leaders are trying to control how their supporters think about them thus turning them into mindless drones. I have seen this happen ever since Reagan and it has progressively gotten worse with the invention of a platform known as social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more).

After almost 60 years of living I have learned that if you want to know what your leader is up too you need to watch the opposing side’s news sources. This means that if you want to know what a Republican leader is doing then you need to watch CNN or MSNBC and if you want to know what a Democrat leader is doing then you need to watch FOX or go to Breitbart. Now this is where we all must be clear headed and careful because the opposing sides “mouthpieces” will always add tons of bias to their news stories to make that leader look bad which means that people need to listen to the facts and tune out the “spin”. For example, the Democrats in America are attacking the current Presidents nominee for the Supreme Court not based on his work history but because of his stance on abortion which shows a clear bias against Brett Kavanaugh. However, to be fair Kavanaugh has shown a lot of bias about certain issues over the years (we will discuss this later) that could very easily have disastrous effects on the country for years to come. This means that we must always look for the facts and we must always tune out the spin so that we can find the truth which is always in the middle somewhere!

To control what people think about them tyrants always try and control what is being “said” about them and to silence any dissenters they start campaigns against them or they begin to constantly call them liars or as we call them in modern times the “fake news”. To facilitate in this control tyrants will constantly attack all press sources that do not agree with them and then praise all the other news sources who constantly take their side and these supporting news sources will begin their own campaigns to paint the other side’s news sources as “liars, dissenters, and the fake news” even going as far as to come up with crazy explanations to back up their claims that have no basis in real truth. In addition, you will constantly see these leaders on the news sites that support them but you will rarely if ever see them on the opposing side’s news stations. Many republicans and republican leaders did not like Obama when he was in office, but Obama was never afraid of opposing news agencies and he went on FOX news multiple times throughout his Presidency to stand up for what he believed in. If a leader ever refuses to answer questions from opposing news sources then it should be crystal clear that they are either hiding something or they are afraid to answer the questions that they are being asked. Once again, whether you liked Obama or not you have to understand that he was NEVER afraid to go on FOX News which he appeared on over 10 times. Tyrants will always try and silence any news outlet that does not agree with them and they will try their best to paint them as liars (aka Fake News) so that their base will never believe a word that those news agencies report. Finally, a tyrant will begin to slowly stop taking questions from the news agencies that don’t support them and they will eventually stop allowing the reporters from those news agencies to come to their press briefings or events and if an American President is doing this then they are “abridging the freedom of the press” which is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution! What is a tyrant afraid of…the truth getting out?

The last thing that tyrants will try to do is control what people watch on TV. In many communist countries it is against the law to listen to anything other than state sponsored television or radio, and it always starts out slow when dealing with soft tyrants because they want to slowly lead the people of their country into captivity. Soft tyrants will always do some or all of the following…

Constantly complain about any news source that does not agree with them

Constantly call that News Source liars or the dreaded “Fake News”

Tell people not to believe what they hear with their own ears or see with their own eyes on those stations (even legitimate undeniable recordings of the leader)

They will begin to try and control what those around them watch and what the citizens in their countries watch on television so that they have total control on what people hear and see (This Is Called Indoctrination)

To accomplish this task, tyrants (and those in league with them) will constantly make comments like “watch this station, but not that one because it’s “FAKE”.  Citizens know this; if this is happening in your country then your leader is trying to control what you watch! For example, I heard for YEARS how the liberal news sites (MSNBC and CNN) did nothing but constantly attack Republican Presidents, Congressmen, and Senators and I would shun them and yes attack them for being FAKE. However, I have actually taken the time to watch some of their shows and guess what? That was nothing more than a LIE that Fox News put out so now I know that Fox News lies (#shocker)! Yes, MSNBC and CNN add spin to their stories but so does Fox and I have not heard many of them ever say someone on the right is guilty but instead they say “IF” it is true then that person is in trouble so how is “IF” accusing anyone of anything? It isn’t, but Fox wants you to think that it is going on so that you will only watch Fox so that THEY can fill you with guess what… Yep, their spin!

Spin?

Folks, SPIN is on both sides of the aisle and on ALL News Stations!

We must understand that the men who wrote the Constitution did not trust that every American President would be “moral” or that the Congress or Senate would not become corrupted by a President and this is why they added a “free press” to the 1^st Amendment. A free press is crucial in stopping a soft dictatorship from forming because a free press answers to no one in the government. Without the free press probing into our leaders as they have done since 1776 there is a huge chance that America could have turned into a dictatorship a long time ago.

Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington

“...whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter…” (Paris – January 16^th, 1787).

Sign #2 – A High Turnover & Nothing but Yes Men

The second sign that a soft tyrant is taking over your country is when that countries new leader has a “huge” turnover in the people around them, and those being let go are the ones he picked himself. While some turnover in new governance is normal, we must be aware of the percentage of previous leaders so that we have statistical facts to show us what exactly is going on. For example, most of the recent U.S. Presidents by their 18^th month in office had a turnover rate of around 9-12% with Bill Clinton having the highest turnover rate in recent history of 42%. The main reason soft tyrants have high turnover rates is because they only want people in their inner circle that agree with them and their policies, which means that if anyone disagrees with them then they have to go. Once again, while it is normal for new leaders to have growing pains it is not normal for a leader to have 3 to 6 times the average turnover rate of previous leaders. This is a MAJOR warning sign that a country could be heading in the direction of becoming a soft dictatorship.

In addition, when you have a leader who is constantly stating that they require “undying loyalty” from their team and then you see their high turnover rate; you should now know that this leader is surrounding themselves with people who will never stand up to them and I mean EVER! This is exactly what Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and every other dictator has done throughout history; they get rid of anyone who disagrees with them and then they replace them with people who will cower before them. The downside of “Yes Men” to any leader is that they will never know if that person is telling them the truth or just saying what the tyrant wants to hear (which can have disastrous consequences on that country). Then again, tyrants don’t really care what their subordinates say because they want everything to be done their way and they want their subordinates to be in total submission to them. If their subordinates who have been removed from service to the tyrant begin to speak out after being fired from their position(s); the tyrant will go on a campaign to destroy them, their families, and their reputation no matter what it takes to make it happen because tyrants will never tolerate anyone who speaks out against them. One of the main reasons why an elected soft tyrant is so dangerous is because their voting base will protect them at all costs even if it means starting a Civil War. The reason blind partisanship is so dangerous is because blind partisan followers do not have the ability to think for themselves and they will always stand up for the tyrant they elected which can and has led to the undoing of many democracies/republics throughout history. People who are blinded by religion or patriotism are the easiest to lead because the tyrant will tap into that belief system and exploit it!

Sign #3 –Total Control of All Governing Bodies

Under a dictatorship subordinate governing groups are really nothing more than puppet agencies or organizations that will never have the guts to stand up to the tyrant for fear of retribution. Modern day tyrants like Hussein, Kim Jung Un, Erdogan, Putin, and Xi Jinping have been credited with killing many of their own cabinet members (aka–politburo members) and in some cases killing thousands of their own citizens because those cabinet members and citizens had the nerve to stand up to them. To obtain total and absolute power over a country (especially when a country has multiple layers of governing bodies or powers) the soft tyrant must control all subordinate groups so there is no opposing voice and this is what I call “stacking the political deck”. As we saw in the previous two signs soft tyrants try and “stack the deck” of the “press” and the “people around” them so that they have total control of those two groups. The next area that they MUST control is the other governing bodies involved in their government and how does a soft tyrant accomplish this? By LIES & FEAR/INTIMIDATION!

Once a country has obtained a “cult of personality” type of leader with enough base voters in their pockets then that leader now has a POWERFUL tool at his or her disposal so we must understand what a “cult of personality” of leader is and why they are so dangerous. A cult of personality leader arises by using techniques of mass media, propaganda, big spectacles, and patriotism to create an idealized, heroic, and sometimes even a worshipful image of a leader often through praise or flattery. Often these “cult of personality” leaders are very similar to apotheosis (the elevation of someone to deification) because their followers have raised them to that level (whether they know it or not does not matter). It is simple to find out which of their followers has done this because all you have to do is say something about “their leader” in a negative way. Those who haven’t will ask you for proof and those who have will rail against you with venomous attacks without providing a shred of evidence to back their claims. We have two great examples of this in recent history because this deification is exactly what the Obama and Trump voters did during their run for office, and even more after they were elected. Some went as far as to say that God put Obama/Trump in office to save America and I am like what? The Bible says if “MY” People which are called by my name; not if the “LEADERS” of my country shall “humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land”. Sadly, both the left and right were sold a bill of goods from false “profits” that both Obama/Trump were sent by God to save America and this is why they received the praise and admiration they got. Finally a tyrant will just CONSTANTLY spew out lies and then spew out MORE lies so that he can cover his previous lies. I always ask this, how many lies must a leader tell before people will begin to see through them? It worked wonders in Nazi Germany because Hitler and Goebbels told lie upon lie and overtime their supporters no longer cared anymore about all the lies and supported Hitler even more. So if we have a leader that is constantly lying and then lying to cover his previous lies and no one under him calls him out on the lies then our country is in DEEP trouble.

The second area a tyrant will use to control his subordinates is by using fear and intimidation tactics. When anyone stands up against them that are supposed to be allied with them the soft tyrant will go on a public tirade of verbal attacks and they will do whatever they can to destroy that person politically or in many cases personally and remember this; party affiliation does not matter because they ALL do it. In addition, tyrants will rally their base voters to try and make sure that the candidate who is opposing them does not get elected in whatever district or state they are running in because they want to make sure everyone knows that they will do their best to make sure that anyone who opposes them does NOT get elected. The tyrant will make public statements threatening to do this at first to instill fear and to intimidate candidates into submission, but if that does not work the tyrant will show up in their district or state to endorse whoever is running against that candidate to try and sway the voters. Have we seen this in the last 10 years? You bet we have and it’s an age old tyrant tactic to make sure that they obtain and retain total control of the country by controlling everyone who gets elected under them! Finally, sometimes even this doesn’t work so the tyrant will begin to jail, censure, or even arrange their death so that any dissenting voice is quieted. However, as much as I would love to say this would NEVER happen in America;  I would be a total naïve fool to think that because we have had many criminals walked the halls of Congress and Senate and even sit in the Oval Office.

Sign #4 – Total Control the Judicial System

Probably one of the most dangerous signs is when a tyrant tries to stack the “legal deck” in their favor. In America we have three official branches of our government which are the Executive (President), the Legislative (Senate and Congress), and the Judicial (The Supreme Court and All Lower Courts). However, we also have a fourth unofficial branch that was put into place by the founding fathers in the “First Amendment” just in case the other three branches were every taken over by evil and corrupt leaders. We have to understand that for America to enter into “soft tyranny” the current person who is the President would have to control all three branches and then exert enough pressure on the 4^th unofficial branch (the press) to control what is being said say about them. Tyrants accomplish this by calling all other news agencies who will not comply with them “liars” and “fake news” which is the term that we are constantly being bombarded with today so that their main supporters will never believe anything negative that is said about them. We have to truly understand that a free press is our last check and balance system to control a corrupt leader like how the “Washington Post” exposed Nixon and if we ever lose that then this country is gone and will never come back. So how does a tyrant control the judicial branch? He makes sure that whoever he appoints to the Supreme Court will back HIM UP!

For instance, in America the latest President wants to install a justice by the name of "Brett Kavanough" who is anti-abortion. If that were the only issue then many in America would not be so nervous about him being appointed, but to understand his views you have to go back into his history. In 2009 Kavanaugh wrote an article in the Minnesota Law Review where he clearly stated that he believed that a sitting President should be exempt from civil suits while in office and that the President should be immunized or protected from criminal charges and prosecution while serving as the President thus making them “above the law”. However, we must understand that Mr. Kavanaugh did not always believe this. Kavanaugh worked with independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the period that led up to the 1998 impeachment hearings of then President Bill Clinton and had no issue in bringing charges against a sitting President. However, he has since changed his opinion about bringing charges against a sitting President so is this why the current President wanted him so bad even choosing him above others who were without a doubt more qualified? Kavanaugh went as far as to propose that “Congress might consider a law exempting a President while in office from criminal prosecution and investigation” or in plain English, the “Sitting President” would basically be able to do whatever they want until they leave office and that is dangerous! For a tyrant, despot, or autocrat to have total control they have to make sure that no matter what they do that they cannot be charged with any wrongdoing. Are you starting to see a pattern? The pattern is this… The tyrant wants total control of everything around them and then the tyrant will do anything they can to discredit anyone that opposes them so that no one will believe the press. When they finally take over the Judicial Branch of their government they then know that they can do WHATEVER they want and the Judicial Branch will back them and that is the end of democracy…

Sign #5 – They Stand Up For Other Tyrants in the World

One of the last most deceptive signs is when a person wishing to take over starts praising other tyrants or autocrats for what they have done. Think of it this way, how can you praise other tyrants who have killed to get and maintain their power? If you know of any leader who is doing this then know that that leader wants to have the same kind of power and control over YOU! As the old saying goes “Birds of a feather flock together” and this is especially true when it comes to world leaders. If you follow leaders of the world closely you will see that those who support freedom will always be working together to further that agenda and those and those who support tyranny will also be working together. So what does it say about a leader of a “democracy” that is constantly praising “dictators”? It should be ringing WARNING BELLS so LOUD that they drive you crazy, but does it? The reason it doesn’t is because that democratic leader makes it sound like he is against dictators when in fact behind the scenes he is secretly working with them. Any leader of a democratic country who meets “privately” with a dictator or a dictator’s liaison needs to be watched CLOSELY because something EVIL way is coming your way! Yes we want our leaders to meet with the evil leaders of the world, but if they are doing it alone with no way of knowing what is being said then how do you or I really know what side they are on? Another sign of this is that after said “private” meeting with a dictator that our leader says “all is well…we worked it out… we are safe now…” but can’t or won’t provide information about what was said during that meeting then you must know that they are hiding something; if not then why don’t they tell us what was said? They work for us right? Do we not have the right to know what was said? YOU BET WE DO, and these types of “smoke filled backroom deals” is just what dictators LOVE to do and never doubt that for one second and what comes next is their real end game and that is to take you’re your country and turn it into a “dictatorship” and they will do it without firing a shot!

Abraham Lincoln

“America Will Never Be Destroyed From The Outside. If We Falter and Lose Our Freedoms, It Will Be Because We Destroyed Ourselves”

Nikita Khrushchev

“We will take America without firing a shot ... we will bury you… We can’t expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism”

“We do not have to invade the United States we will destroy you from within”

Buyer Beware…

Part II Coming Soon

Your Country Is Being Taken Over And You Don't Even Know It...

But Do You Care?